Every Avengers: Infinity War Character Missing From The Vanity Fair Photoshoot

We’ve got some new looks at Earth’s Mightiest Heroes care of Vanity Fair, but several characters from Avengers: Infinity War are missing from their photoshoot. Anthony and Joe Russo’s highly-anticipated superhero team-up movie is fast approaching and Marvel Studios is gearing up to start promoting the upcoming 19th installment in the long-running Marvel Cinematic Universe – starting with a massive Vanity Fair cover story.

The outlet debuted multiple covers and revealed several photos of more than 30 major and minor characters, from the original Avengers team – such as Tony Stark and Captain America – to some of the franchise’s newest superheroes, such as Black Panther and Spider-Man. While that’s certainly a lot of characters for one movie to appear in a single magazine photoshoot, that still leaves a little more than a handful of potentially major players in Infinity War absent. Here’s a rundown of who didn’t get the spotlight.

Thanos

The biggest character missing from the images is Thanos (Josh Brolin). Marvel first teased the supervillain in the post-credits scene of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers in 2012, after first tasking Loki (Tom Hiddleston) with acquiring the Tesseract (the Space Stone) and leading an alien invasion of Earth. Thanos also tasked Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) with acquiring an Orb (containing the Power Stone) in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, though the newly-formed team took control of the Stone after Ronan’s betrayal, thus leaving Thanos empty-handed once again. And so, it seems Thanos is going procure all six Infinity Stones on his own.

Thanos, obviously, plays an integral role in Avengers: Infinity War. However, considering that the Vanity Fair covers feature just the heroes, it makes sense that the outlet (and Marvel Studios, for that matter) would opt not to include the Mad Titan, who is possibly being saved for his own reveal down the line. It would’ve been too tedious to add him into the mix since he’s being brought to life via CGI. Sure, Groot and Rocket are both present in the photoshoot, but they’re not played by as notable an actor and aren’t prominently displayed on their own.

The Black Order

Considering that Thanos isn’t part of the newly-released photoshoot, it makes sense that his loyal Black Order, aka the Children of Thanos, wouldn’t be either. The Black Order is a team of supervillains – with the MCU’s lineup consisting of Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, Ebony Maw, and a character named Cull Obsidian – who typically do Thanos’ bidding, which in the case of Avengers: Infinity War means aiding the Mad Titan in his quest to obtain all six Infinity Stones. Marvel Studios officially unveiled the team at D23 Expo 2017 this past summer and it seems they are holding back more reveals until a later time, seeing as all four members of the Black Order are also missing from Vanity Fair‘s photoshoot.

Loki

Of everyone missing from Vanity Fair‘s Avengers: Infinity War photoshoot, the most peculiar is Loki, who was last seen embarking on a journey for Earth with Thor and the rest of the Asgardians to establish a new Asgard. A convincing theory is that Loki took the Tesseract when he was in Odin’s vault and will attempt to save his own skin by handing the Infinity Stone over to Thanos at some point in Infinity War. Indeed, Thor slamming into the Milano and meeting up with the Guardians of the Galaxy (as seen in the SDCC footage) would make little sense if Loki and the rest of the Asgardians don’t get dispatched somehow.

With that in mind, Loki’s absence from the photoshoot could be because he’s turned back towards villainy once again – finishing what he started in The Avengers – or that his role just isn’t that large.